From Sydney’s inner-city studios to Berlin’s gallery circuit, August’s art calendar is brimming with bold ideas, tactile experimentation, and cultural reflection.
Across Australia, artists are pushing boundaries in photography, sculpture, ceramics, and more – whether it’s Kitty Callaghan’s meticulous collages, or Rae Haynes’ feminist textile rebellion.
Major institutions mark milestones with retrospectives, while emerging voices explore land, memory, and identity in deeply personal ways. And beyond our borders, exhibitions in Singapore and Berlin offer fresh takes on history and process.
Whether you’re gallery-hopping at home or abroad, here are the must-see shows to catch this month.
NSW
China Heights
Collages and Muscle Memory – from 8 August until 14 September 2025
Kitty Callaghan's Collages and Midori Goto's Muscle Memory are both opening in tandem this Friday at China Heights. Callaghan presents a rigorous examination of constructed imagery through her established methodology of cutting and reweaving sourced material, while Goto plays into the familiar and the nostalgic with her latest series of playful ceramics.
CASSANDRA BIRD
Naytcha Nurture – opening 30 July 2025
The debut solo exhibition by Sydney-based artist Tina Havelock Stevens immerses audiences in a richly layered exploration of nature, perception, and emotional resonance through an instinctive blend of painting, video, sculpture, sound, and improvisation.
COMA
Everything I Carry With Me – until 23 August
Teresa Baker’s first solo exhibition in the Asia Pacific offers a poignant exploration of land, memory, and cultural inheritance through tactile works shaped by displacement, resilience, and the landscapes that travel within us.
SA
Art Gallery of South Australia
Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890–1940 – until 7 Sep 2025
This groundbreaking exhibition highlights the bold contributions of artists such as Ethel Carrick Fox, Margaret Preston, and Bessie Davidson, whose vibrant explorations of colour, light, and form challenged conventions and helped shape the course of international modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Mill
In Reflection: In Response – until 5 September 2025
Curated by Stella Martino, this thoughtful group exhibition brings together five South Australian artists working across textiles, glass, ceramics, and sculpture, highlighting processes of collaboration, community, and shared storytelling grounded in a feminist framework of care and connection.
VIC
Artbank Melbourne
The story of Artbank, Australia’s most visible art collection – 8 August 2025
Celebrating its 45th anniversary with the launch of a major limited edition publication and two new exhibitions, this is a significant publication exploring the program’s history, its influence on Australia’s contemporary art scene, and highlights from its remarkable collection.
Heide Museum of Modern Art
Man Ray and Max Dupain – opening 6 August 2025
This compelling exhibition traces a transcontinental conversation between two pioneers of modern photography, offering a rare glimpse into their parallel innovations, creative partnerships, and the often-overlooked contributions of the women who shaped their artistic worlds.
TarraWarra Museum of Art
Breathing Helps – until 9 November 2025
This landmark solo exhibition at TarraWarra Museum of Art brings together Rose Nolan’s monumental sculptural works for the first time, offering a dynamic and immersive exploration of space, language, and performance, complemented by new choreographic interventions.
C. Gallery
May the Burns I Bridge White the Lay – until 28 August
Ben Mazey's latest exhibition of new works features ceramic wall works, totems and a functional fireplace surround with integrated flower vases. It's a a deepened exploration of earlier motifs including Mazey’s “flag” series, delft-style painted works, wall-mounted “word poems” and interpretations, in ceramic, of familiar domestic items.
Gertrude Glasshouse
Permanent Marker – 29 August until 27 September 2025
Tara Denny’s latest show interlaces found materials, spray paint, wax, and personal shorthand to explore themes of ownership, transformation, and non-verbal communication. Rooted in lived experience and a lineage of women artists and poets, her work embodies a private yet potent vocabulary that navigates boundaries while resisting societal constraints.
QLD
Agnes Contemporary
Group Show – from 7 August until 2 September 2025
Featuring works by artists such as Amalia Keefer, Jordan Azcune, Bella Deary, and Cosima Scales, this debut exhibition from new gallery Agnes Contemporary brings together a diverse cross-section of Australian talent in a unique, artist-driven format. Curated by Sarah Darling and Skye Jamieson, it prioritises creative freedom and community over convention, highlighting painting, photography, and mixed media in an adaptive, evolving space.
Edwina Corlette
Light and Land – until 19 August 2025
Featuring works by Sally Anderson, Eleanor Louise Butt, Bridie Gillman, Dan Kyle, Ross Laurie, Joanna Logue, Candy Nelson Nakamarra, and Carbiene McDonald Tjangala, this exhibition presents a group of contemporary artists who use abstraction to reflect deeply personal and cultural relationships to landscape, exploring memory, emotion, and the shifting experience of light and place.
Outer Space
Subversive Threads – until 22 November 2025
Rae Haynes presents a powerful exploration of feminist and ancestral legacies through embroidery, blending archival research, auto-theory, and participatory practice to highlight textile work as a form of resistance.
Queensland Art Gallery
Under a Modern Sun Art in Queensland 1930s–1950s – from 16 August until 25 January 2026
The exhibition features works by influential Queensland artists including Vida Lahey, William Bustard, Kenneth Macqueen, Joe Rootsey, Gwendolyn Grant, Daphne Mayo, Rose Simmonds, Margaret Olley, Margaret Cilento, and Jon Molvig, alongside contributions from visiting artists such as Sidney Nolan and Max Dupain.
NT
Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory
Gumurr’manydji Manapanmirr Djäma – on now
This powerful exhibition features the work of Muwarra Ganambarr and highlights the Yolŋu people's enduring contributions to economic independence, cultural resilience, and community strength.
TAS
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
Oliffe Richmond – until 12 October 2025
Tasmanian-born sculptor and educator Oliffe Richmond (1919–1977) built a distinguished career in Britain, and a new selection of works on paper offers a compelling glimpse into the evolution of his artistic practice – from bold early sketches to refined studies that reflect his mature sculptural vision.
Despard Gallery
Personify – until 16 August 2025
Featuring works by Graham Lang, Chris Bury, Liam Ross Baker, Lisa Garland, Bliss Sandhu, Micheila Petersfield, and Hamish Wilson, this exhibition explores contemporary portraiture through diverse approaches to representing the human figure and identity.
WA
Art Gallery of Western Australia
Elise Blumann: Music in motion – until 30 November 2025
Elise Blumann’s work captures the energy of human movement through bold compositions and evolving techniques, reflecting her journey from European Modernism to a distinctively Australian artistic voice.
INT
Michael Reid Berlin
After Turner – from 4–28 August 2025
This exhibition presents a new series of photographs by Luke Shadbolt, created using slow-shutter techniques and underwater housing to capture the interaction of light, water, and atmosphere, drawing influence from J.M.W. Turner and Goethe’s colour theory.
Sullivan+Strumpf Singapore
Bricks Laid, Stories Untold – until 16 August 2025
A landmark exhibition that brings together artists Yanyun Chen, Kirsten Coelho, Julia Gutman, Kanchana Gupta, Irfan Hendrian, Gregory Hodge, Lindy Lee, Tiffany Loy, Dawn Ng, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, Adeela Suleman, Ella Wijt, and Yang Yongliang in a powerful exploration of structure, memory, and the unseen labour behind creation through painting, sculpture, installation, textile, and photography.
